About Us

About Us

WHO ARE WE?

In a nutshell…

We’re the favourite choice for the backpacker on a budget, the student with some study abroad holidays to burn, the gap year gapper with a gap in their galavanting, the solo traveler looking for some soul mates or the group travel group. Our Stokies want the most affordable experience worth top value at the world’s best and craziest festivals and destinations with an authentic feel, a flexible schedule and options to suit your budget. The best fiestas are easily accessible with our low cost, high fun trips. You could say travel parties and festivals around Europe are our jam. Get Stoked with Stoke Travel.

What are we like?

We’re the good-natured uncle who let you have a whole beer at Christmas. That’s us. We’re the feeling you get when you get pressured into going to a club even though you hate clubs so you just get trashed drunk and embarrass your friends so, hey, clubs – maybe they’re alright. We’re alright too!

We’re less like a tour company, we’re more of that time you saw that old woman’s boobs in the hospital and they were so weird that you tried not to look but you’ve thought about them at least two times since. We’re those two times.

We’re that person you barely know who you sometimes sext. We’re that smell from when you didn’t shower after sex but still go about your business for the rest of the day… People don’t realise they can smell it, but trust me, they smell it, and it stinks of glory. That’s us. Glory sex-smell. We hope you like the smell.

What To Expect

Stoke does travel your way. Stoke won’t herd you around with inflexible itineraries, Stoke doesn’t lose track of the beauty of travel. None of Stoke’s trips are identical, but there is a consistent theme. We like to consider our guests to be participants in the experience, not observers. We create an environment where you feel you ‘own’ your trip, with enough flexibility in our schedule for you to make your own decisions as to what you do.

We also consider ourselves to be ‘fun’ merchants, we believe that fun can be created, and is indeed valuable to the traveler. When you’re looking back on the travels you’ve done, surely the trips where you’ve had the most fun will be the trips you remember most fondly. There is no set formula for fun, and everybody enjoys different things, but we make sure the environment is there for you to enjoy yourself while you’re traveling with us…

Why Surfing?

A long time ago a well known surf brand ran a long running ad campaign with the slogan “Only a surfer knows the feeling”. In this day and age we can, rightfully, view that sentiment as a pile of sentimental tripe. Nevertheless, the marketing gurus were onto something – surfing is a special pastime, one that transcends the boundaries of sport and art, that inspires the most primal feelings in your latent flippers (we came from the sea, 70% of us still call the sea our close cousin). To surf is not just to do something overwhelmingly fun, healthy or cool, though it is all of those things, it’s a quasi spiritual pastime, a form of meditation that doesn’t require you to stink like a hippy, a way to clear the mind, bring yourself closer to the great creator, to retrace our steps from sea to land, to dance the cosmic dance that our ancestors did all those eons ago…

Or maybe, just perhaps, we’re being self-indulgent wankers and there isn’t more to surfing than the quite simple act of riding waves, looking cool, scoring babes and getting sand in your ears (amongst other orifices). In any case, it’s what Stoke Travel does, what got us on the road in the first place, and something we will continue to do until we are old and sultana-like. It is for these reasons Stoke takes special pride in our surf camps, it’s where we started and where we want to end up. You should join us for a surf sometime… We started out in Europe chasing waves, and we haven’t even thought about slowing down.

Jobs and how to get involved

If you love to get involved, love travel and think you have the required skills to improve the travel experience for thousands … Stoke wants to hear from you!

An Intern position at Stoke Travel, is a full time seasonal job. An internship is a freelance position at Stoke Travel. Interns reside in their respective departure city, however travel frequently throughout Europe. Please write to jobs@stoketravel.com

Suggestions/contact and feedback.

Some of the best ideas have come from crew traveling with us.. if you have any suggestions on improvements or would like to see stoke open up somewhere new or simply want to air a wacky idea.. please let us know!

Information for travel agents

If you are a travel agency or in a position to organize bookings for people that may be interested in Stoke Travel’s trips, tours and events then we should talk!

Stoke Travel works with travel agents in North America, Europe and Australia. We pride ourselves on creative arrangements and consider travel agencies or group organizers to be our partners in communicating and executing the best possible experience. Our company set-up enables flexibility and we are able to consider amended itineraries and inclusions to suit your market perfectly.

A little note on stoke and the travel industry

If you are to briefly look into our segment of the current travel industry.. that is to say- providers of trips, tours, activities and destinations- you will come across a plethora of entrepreneurial brands striving to carve out their niche.

By our best count.. at the time of writing there are about 7600 travel companies around the world providing services for students and backpackers.. people who want to have loads of fun on a budget between roughly the ages of 20 and 40.

Some of these brands are subsidiaries. Cogs in the wheels of giant corporate behemoths offering hundreds of itineraries, options and schedules. These guys generally don’t get into the personality side of things all that much. They aren’t a barrel full of laughs, but their purpose to you is that through their organization they can erase the anxiety that can come with planning a trip. They take away the doubts and fears by taking you there. Fair enough, there is value here and it is a considerate service to offer.

And then other travel companies are small independent operators specializing in particular activities or locations- like hang-gliding in the Norwegian fjords or chasing breeding whale sharks off the coast of the Seychelles. Stuff you wouldn’t ordinarily get up to on a Tuesday afternoon (whale shark porn being a weekend activity) so it’s pretty handy to have a local experienced operator on your side.

And then yet other travel companies are catering only to individuals, or only to couples or only to families. The idea being that people at a similar stage in life are going to be attracted to similar things…

And then there are the travel companies catering to groups and aspiring to make their travel party as big as possible. A noble ambition.

And let it be noted that all these different companies have got their merits. If you do your research you will surely find something that suits you well.. a good option that can increase your experience and decrease your spending. That, after all.. is kinda the point with these here travel companies.

What is really rare and lacking in the industry is a legitimate option that provides a big party (groups), no patronizing and condescending attitudes (i.e, not treating adults like school kids), an ephemeral experience balancing organization with spontaneity (i.e no ‘factory travel’, no 2 trips being the same), guests who are not merely observers but central and necessary participators to the whole she-bang. YOU. And most importantly, a real option that brings together groups of travelers from all over the world. It is a great big shame to see bus loads of people from just the one nationality eating, partying and traveling together. We all know why it happens. Because the travel company specializes in marketing to it’s own country of origin.. or, indeed, travelers feel more comfortable in groups of their own kind. Either way it just isn’t on. – The general rule of thumb is that people from other lands are always far sexier than people from our home countries. Always. Plus, they generally know about things that we don’t know about at home. . and you can normally get away with a bit of exaggeration of your stories.

Who can argue with that? And that observation, coupled with a van and some surfboards, is how Stoke Travel was accidentally born. So shed your skin, take a fresh breathe of foreign air, try something new today, take our up-front advertising with a pinch of salt (slice of lemon and shot of tequila if that is what the doctor has ordered) and get involved with Stoke Travel. We can’t wait to meet you.